- (1.) Leave granted. Appellant is a cooperative society. It is registered under the Punjab Cooperative Societies Act, 1961. It operates a sugar mill. It is said to be a seasonal industry. At the beginning of the season, workmen are recruited and they are retrenched at the end of it. Respondent was appointed as a seasonal workman. He was appointed on daily wage basis. On or about 14.03.1992, he raised an industrial dispute in terms of Section 2A of the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947 (for short "the Act") pursuant whereto or in furtherance whereof the State of Punjab in exercise of its jurisdiction under Section 10(1)(c) of the Act referred the following dispute to the Labour Court by a notification dated 8.07.1996: "Whether termination of services of Sh. Harmesh Kumar workman is justified and in order If not, to what relief/ exact amount of compensation is he entitled -
(2.) The Presiding Officer, Labour Court, Gurdaspur opining that the workman has not been able to establish that he had worked for 240 days held that the respondent having not been called by the appellant in the subsequent crushing seasons and also having called his juniors violated the provisions of Section 25-G of the Act. He, therefore, passed the following award: "In the result, in view of my findings on the above issue, I pass an award directing the respondent to reemploy the workman from the season in which juniors to him were called and workman was not called. The workman shall also be entitled to back wages, etc. with all allied and monetary benefits which are granted to his juniors from their joining when workman was not called"
(3.) A writ petition was filed by the appellant herein questioning the legality and/ or validity of the said award and by reason of the impugned judgment a Division Bench of the High Court rejected the contention raised by the appellant herein that the provisions of Section 25-G of the Act cannot be said to have any application in the instant case stating: "We, however, find no merit in this argument for the reason that a positive finding has been recorded by the Tribunal that persons junior to the workman had been retained and it is also admitted by the Management that they had not offered any appointment to the respondent on account of pendency of the dispute in Court. We are of the opinion that had it been the case of the Management that the exigencies of services did not warrant his re-employment, something could be said in its favour but this is not the case of the Management. No offer was made to the workman on account of the pendency of the proceedings before the Labour Court.";